Kyle Michel Sullivan's Blog: https://www.myirishnovel.com/, page 257

Big Apple Time

Off to NYC in the morning. A 9 hour train ride across to Albany and down the Hudson River Valley. It's a beautiful trip, and I still think of North by Northwest as I travel it. Looks like the job will only be one day, but it'll be all day and my train home isn't till Friday. I may be able to get an earlier one than the 3:40 pm, which is usually late...but I'll deal with that on Friday.

I don't have Final Draft on my laptop, so I won't be working much on CK, but that may be good. I need to sort some things out about it. See how dangerous I want to go. Should CK be amoral as regards Carli? Is everything she does okay because she's out for justice? I dunno, yet.

Funny thing is, Is don't like amoral movies...but that seems to be the direction most are going. Even Martin Scorsese is caught in it -- he made a movie about a sociopathic beast who ripped people off in order to finance a fabulously rich lifestyle, but  wound up being a love letter to self-indulgence. Swordfish, made 12-14 years ago, was even worse in how casually it treated the deaths of innocent people. Same for Boiler Room and its shrug on selling junk bonds to unsuspecting buyers in order to bail out another unsuspecting buyer who'd been defrauded by the guy who did the selling. Money's all that counts, not human suffering.

I think of Speed and how everyone on that bus was made into a human being by Joss Whedon. Then the death of a woman passenger became traumatic for everyone. That's the gold standard for thrillers, so far as I'm concerned -- when you worry about everyone involved and don't have the anonymous background players who can be killed off without much sorrow.

Agatha Christie set up And Then There Were None in a way that emphasized guilt, as 10 people summoned to an isolated island are killed off one by one. Each, it turned out, had committed a crime or brutality against another human being, and those who felt the least guilty about it were killed first, leaving those who felt the most guilty to suffer until they, too, died. It was written in her usual dry style, but the implications of the setup marked me, deep. Maybe I'll incorporate some of that into CK...

Hmm...that'd mean the worst guy would have to go first, and if that happens, the story's over...so maybe not.

Off to NYC in the morning. A 9 hour train ride across to ...

Off to NYC in the morning. A 9 hour train ride across to Albany and down the Hudson River Valley. It's a beautiful trip, and I still think of North by Northwest as I travel it. Looks like the job will only be one day, but it'll be all day and my train home isn't till Friday. I may be able to get an earlier one than the 3:40 pm, which is usually late...but I'll deal with that on Friday.

I don't have Final Draft on my laptop, so I won't be working much on CK, but that may be good. I need to sort some things out about it. See how dangerous I want to go. Should CK be amoral as regards Carli? Is everything she does okay because she's out for justice? I dunno, yet.

Funny thing is, Is don't like amoral movies...but that seems to be the direction most are going. Even Martin Scorsese is caught in it -- he made a movie about a sociopathic beast who ripped people off in order to finance a fabulously rich lifestyle, but  wound up being a love letter to self-indulgence. Swordfish, made 12-14 years ago, was even worse in how casually it treated the deaths of innocent people. Same for Boiler Room and its shrug on selling junk bonds to unsuspecting buyers in order to bail out another unsuspecting buyer who'd been defrauded by the guy who did the selling. Money's all that counts, not human suffering.

I think of Speed and how everyone on that bus was made into a human being by Joss Whedon. Then the death of a woman passenger became traumatic for everyone. That's the gold standard for thrillers, so far as I'm concerned -- when you worry about everyone involved and don't have the anonymous background players who can be killed off without much sorrow.

Agatha Christie set up And Then There Were None in a way that emphasized guilt, as 10 people summoned to an isolated island are killed off one by one. Each, it turned out, had committed a crime or brutality against another human being, and those who felt the least guilty about it were killed first, leaving those who felt the most guilty to suffer until they, too, died. It was written in her usual dry style, but the implications of the setup marked me, deep. Maybe I'll incorporate some of that into CK...

Hmm...that'd mean the worst guy would have to go first, and if that happens, the story's over...so maybe not.

A long conversation with Carli and Zeke...

I have my best talks with my characters when I'm not there. It's kind of spooky. My brain connects with something solid -- like reading a fascinating mystery novel -- and in the silence it brings to my scrambled thoughts, my characters make themselves known. No need for Carli or Zeke to tap on the side of my head to say, "Hey, listen to us." It's just the three of us connecting.

I have this story all wrong. I've been telling myself it's about revenge, but it's not; it's redemption. I see it clear, now. It may read as a tossed-off girl-kicks-butt-to-get-even script...but that is not the spine of the story. Not anymore. It's about two wounded people who heal each other.

Carli and Zeke laid it out very plainly, albeit in the back of my mind. My subconscious. Conscious unconscious. Whatever. The story fates have whispered in my ear and I must follow.

God knows what shape the script will take, now.

Reading...

I just started in on a lovely murder mystery, Bruno, Chief of Police. It's set in the village of St. Denis in the south of France, and follows Bruno as he deals with the quiet flow of a sheltered town in the face of a horrific murder and growing racist sentiment. Martin Walker wrote it, and his style is geared to the slower rhythm of country life even as the tension builds.

I started reading it to see how other mystery writers approach their stories, but now I'm genuinely caught up in it. If you're looking for a fast-pace, try Richard Parker or Elmore Leonard. I may read one of theirs, next. But as regards returning to work on The Vanishing of Owen Taylor, I like Walker's method more.

I did more work on CK, of course. Seems I'm into the relationship building aspect of the story...and something that's just sort of happened without me planning it is, Carli's connection with Zeke puts a stop to the violence. For a while.

Part of that is his reticence in revealing his background and how direct he is with her. He even asks her why she's interested in him, and all she can say is, "You're the first man I've met who's just like me."

And, once again, I have no earthly idea what the hell she means. He's not a killer...at least, not since he got out of the Army. He's not out for revenge. He's missing a leg, while her body is intact and unscarred. He's covered with tattoos while she has only one. So she's being cryptic with me as well as him...and I hate that.

And love it.

One step forward, two steps back

Financially. As usual. I'm not working for three weeks at the end of the summer, so my income will drop by ¾ that month. Lovely. I've already sent out feelers for packing jobs so I don't wind up bankrupt. Amazing how closely I teeter to that. Be nice if my books would actually sell enough to make a difference.

I guess I could get CK in order and see if it's sellable for a couple thousand. Only 90% of the people looking for scripts on places like InkTip want things that can be shot for $250K or less. I guess the way CK is going, it could be done. I've only got 4 real locations, so far, and not many cast members. No big car chases or SFX needed. We'll see what happens on it.

I've got 44 solid pages, in line. I'm at the point where Carli and Zeke are connecting, so all I need is 46 more, though since I already have the ending written it's really just 34 pages. I dropped another subplot, but it stubbornly weeded its way back in. Guess the story's got itself set in its own way.

Zeke did another little something I wasn't quite expecting -- he fell asleep on Carli. And then Carli began to weep. I'm not sure exactly why it happened...or what it means, yet...but damn, it felt right. It's at a point where she still thinks he might be part of what happened to her sister...or maybe it's right after she learns he couldn't have been. I dunno, yet.

What's scary right now is, I'm falling in love with both of them...and that's not something an author should ever do. I do it. And I'm aware of it. But it can hurt the story, so I shouldn't.

Except I have to wonder if maybe it helps...

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

To make magic on film you have to have a need for danger, poetry in your soul, and a touch of madness in your heart. Orson Welles had it. Citizen Kane is still an amazing film to watch, even though it was made 73 years ago. Fellini had it. 8½ can still tear you up with its beauty and pain. Kurosawa had it. Seven Samurai will knock any modern film out of the park with its intensity mixed with heartbreaking beauty.  Jean Renoir had it. The Rule of the Game is as modern now as it was in 1939. Hitchcock had it. Notorious is stunning in how perfectly suspense, romance, psychological dynamics and cruelty mix so smoothly together. John Ford had it. The Searchers is as vicious and cruel as it is loving.

Modern filmmakers -- I can't think of any who have those qualities or aspects. Steven Spielberg almost gets it, but then it scares him and he does something goofy to mess it up. The closest he came to achieving it was Empire of the Sun, but he still had a couple of dumb moments in it to make sure the audience knew he didn't really mean it. Same thing happened in Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan, albeit more blatantly. Martin Scorsese is too busy proving he knows how to play with a camera. The Coen Brothers are too busy being quirky and esoteric. Alfonso Cuarón was doing it with Gravity, till the end. Ang Lee is too level-headed an artist to let himself succumb. I can't think of anyone else who would even begin to count.

Which brings me to Chris Columbus. I just watched the movie version of the first Harry Potter book and I can say, without doubt, he has none of it. Not a drop. If I had seen the movie before reading the book, I'd never have touched a page. For a film that's about magic, it was very leaden and limp and amazingly lumpy. The book's not great literature, not in the least, but it made sense and it rocked along. This movie lurched, and I lay that at the feet of its director.

I've seen other directors ruin films -- The Last Time I Committed Suicide was the worst example -- but Columbus doesn't even ruin it. He just...shoots it. From a dozen different angles. And makes his movie out of that. Like a music video director. No sense of story. No build. Nothing but scene after scene. And his way with child actors is nonexistent. To be honest, Daniel Radcliffe was bad. He got a lot better as he grew, but in this first movie, he's no more real than a comic book sketch...and the same goes for Emma Watson and Rupert Gint.

Not that it matters; the thing's made a billion dollars...but talk about a disappointment.

Question...

Can a script that's really quite vicious and violent be playful, too? Carli commits some pretty hideous murders -- justified, to an extent, but still...to my mind that would weigh on a person. Unless they're a sociopath. And I don't think Carli is. She's just pissed off and out to exact justice for her sister's death. But could she still be human and sympathetic after what she does to Anastasia and her married boyfriend, and Grady? All in the first ten minutes of the movie?

She's ex-military. She's been in Afghanistan. She's killed people, there. Would that give her a different take on death? One bullet = too easy an end for a devil? I'm getting odd vibes off this aspect of her.

I think it's being brought to the fore by the ludicrous spectacle of Dick Cheney and his two-faced, back-stabbing bitch of a daughter, Liz, writing a column berating Obama for not keeping an occupying force in Iraq, even though al Malaki demanded we leave, and saying he's the worst thing to happen to American freedom, ever. This from the man who ignored the threats leading up to 9/11, lied us into invading a country that had done nothing to us, helped pass the Patriot Act (the biggest assault on American Freedom, ever, period), deliberately outed a CIA agent to get even with her husband for saying there were no WMDs in Iraq, and even shot his friend in the face. He's got the nerve to bash Obama for not being willing to kill more American soldiers in a country that was out of control the second Saddam was toppled. And don't anybody tell me it ever was under control; there was an ebb and flow to the violence, but there was never an end to it.

And then there's St John McCain, who's never been wrong about anything. Just ask him, he'll tell you...and has, over and over. The fact that he's been completely wrong about every aspect of the invasion of Iraq since the drumbeat to war began is irrelevant and a "pack of lies," so far as he's concerned. It'd be interesting to watch these soulless creatures in action if it didn't mean so much human suffering, thanks to their evil needs.

So...Carli...is she like them? Able to justify anything in her mind? No matter what kind of hell it brings? Religious freaks do -- be they Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, or Christian. So do billionaires out to turn the US into their personal fiefdom. Republicans are doing it in Washington as they cut food stamps to pay for more tax breaks for the rich while letting billion-dollar companies get away with paying no taxes, while too many Democrats let them. It's like a full-scale epidemic of "I don't give a fuck about anybody but me."

Is Carli aiming for that until she meets Zeke?

Showin' off...

Zeke's showing off a little...and Carli's letting him. They moved a scene to earlier in the script, and even though it doesn't make logical sense, it feels right there. That's usually when I turn to granite -- when I feel right about something in the story. Once that happens, not even God could get me to change it.

I ran into that with my family script, Bugzters. When I did the first draft, it wasn't great but I liked the relationships of the characters, and I intensified that on the second draft. But then, despite my better judgement, I was talked into minimizing one major character, and it hurt the script. So I decided, Never again.

Sure enough, I kept getting hit with ideas for my scripts to "make them better," meaning make them different and more like someone else would write them. If I wasn't sure about the script, I'd try out the ideas. But if I knew I had it right, I wouldn't.

Then I agreed to change Bugzters into an animated script, and tried very hard to put my ego and absoluteness aside. And I did good...until I was asked to get rid of another major character and blend her aspects in with the lead kid's. I wouldn't. No, it wasn't that I wouldn't, I couldn't. Period. I didn't just refuse; I got angry.

For all the good that did. I had to give the script up, because when I first wrote Bugzters, I was paid for it. Legally, I had no rights to it. That was six years ago...almost six years.  And it hasn't even been bought, yet, let alone made. No one else wants it...because the people who own it don't believe it in.

This is what solidified in my mind that if a producer doesn't want your work as it is, he or she won't gain respect for the project if you make free changes for them. If they give you notes and you do what they want -- something I was instinctually refusing to do -- they still won't be happy with it. The only way to get your work through the wasteland of cowardice populated by producers is to find one who believes in your work so much, they won't want you to change a word and will fight to keep it as is.

It's not the quality of the work that matters, anymore; it's the passion of the people involved. And if you don't feel passionate and confident in your work or what projects you want to make, why should the money guy? He wants to be reassured, not shown that no one else feels all that strongly about the project, either.

Wish I'd figured this out a couple decades ago; I might not have wasted so much of my life.

The characters take over...

This is what I like about writing. Sometimes. I also hate it, sometimes, for different reasons. But Zeke's taken himself over and is leading me places that I hadn't really expected. He's become the peacemaker, stepping into conflicts to try and defuse them. He also has no problem with Dax being a son-of-a-bitch, because the man backed him up. This makes him part of Dax's band of cutthroats --and yet, apart from it.

Carli's taken his lead and done some adjusting of her own. She thinks Zeke's one of the men who raped her sister, and he's on her list to kill. But seeing him in action and talking to him slows her aim for vengeance down. Derails it...a little. Makes her question her motives. Her goals.

Of course it's going to turn out he had nothing to do with the rape, that he didn't join the group till long after. The way Zeke's going, he's not the kind of guy who'd hurt anyone, if he could help it. So this won't be as dark as I can go. Or maybe it will, I don't know.

The main scene I added was Zeke and Thor, his dog who looks a bit like the Viking god and is just as cool as Zeke about everything. I may be adding hurdles to this script getting made, but I can't stop my characters when they're working so hard. And it's not like it'd matter, anyway. The script needs to get to the right person to get made, someone who will believe in it enough to fight for it instead of letting others spit on it.

And there's always someone who wants to spit.

More of Carli's Kills...

Desert land...
The continues from yesterday...
-----------------------

EXT. ISOLATED HOUSE — NIGHT

A beat-up old ranch house surrounded by nothing. The woman leans against the Mercedes, watches Grady glide up. Dust covers him. He beats most of it away and removes the goggles.

WOMAN
You should’ve stayed by me.

GRADY
Do I gotta shower?

She links a finger in his belt and pulls him into a kiss.

WOMAN
Wash your face. Use some mouthwash, too. Or would you prefer another beer?

GRADY
You gotta ask?

INT. ISOLATED HOUSE — NIGHT

The interior just as old and worn as the outside; total opposite of the Benz she’s driving.

Grady washes his face in the kitchen sink. He turns to find her offering him a Negro Modelo. She’s already drinking one.

GRADY
Tough beer.

WOMAN
You prefer Miller Lite?

He takes the beer, gulps down half. She grabs his t-shirt and pulls him close.

GRADY
Don’t tear the shirt. It’s my best roughed-up one.

They kiss.

WOMAN
Now we taste alike.

GRADY
Aw, fuck.

WOMAN
That’s the idea, play-toy.

GRADY
Name’s Grady. What’s yours?

WOMAN
Anastasia -- but you may call me Stasi.

GRADY
Hmph, I knew another girl by that name.

WOMAN
That a fact?

Off goes his shirt, revealing an elaborate tattoo on his back.

WOMAN (CONT’D)
Got any more tatts?

GRADY
You’ll see.

She unbuckles his belt and the buttons of his jeans. He grinds against her, then grunts and tries to keep his balance.

WOMAN
Problem?

GRADY
Just feel weird and...and...what the fuck...? That beer...

WOMAN
Grady -- have roofies been used on you, before?

GRADY
You fuckin’ bitch...what’re you doin’ -- ?

He falls on his ass. Tries to talk but his words dribble into nothingness.
She rolls Grady onto his belly and straps his wrists together with a police band.

WOMAN
I don’t need the restraint, but I feel like playing it kinky.

She pulls off her red wig to reveal brown hair, then her top to reveal a girdle-bustier combination that pushes her breasts up and accentuates her curves. Off it comes.

He watches her, confused, his mouth moving but saying nothing. He passes out.

EXT. DESERT - NIGHT

Grady wakes, face down, bound spread-eagle to the ground, a ball-gag in his mouth. He is naked. He fights to get free.

The woman makes him look at her.

WOMAN
Hi, Grady. Sleep well?

GRADY
(grunts)
What the fuck?

She holds up an iPhone. VIDEO PLAYS — shows a college girl being held down on a pool table by four men as Grady rapes her. The man holding the girl’s head and shoulders is not completely visible. The girl sort of struggles...but is obviously drugged.

WOMAN
That’s you raping her, right?

GRADY
(grunts)
I dunno what you’re talkin’ about. You got the wrong guy. I ain’t done nothin’ to you. I don’t even know you. What do you want?

WOMAN
(known as CARLI from this point)
You don’t know me? Okay. First off, my name is not Anastasia. She’s dead. Second off, my last name’s Vincenzo. Does that fire up any memory cells?

They do. He breathes faster. Pulls harder at his bindings.

Carli pauses the video.

CARLI
Yes. This girl you’re raping -- she’s my sister -- was my sister. Because this video was posted on a dozen different sites, for everyone in her family, all of her friends, and every student in her college to see. So she killed herself, just over a year ago. Thanks to you and the other assholes in this video.

She shows him a full honey-bear. Dribbles honey over his naked legs, arms, and ass.

CARLI (CONT’D)
As you know, she reported the rape, but local law enforcement decided she got into a situation she could not control, so it was her own damn fault, and they refused to arrest or prosecute anyone. I think that’s a crime, Grady, and where there’s a crime, there should be punishment.

She picks up a knife. Runs it over his back, sensuously.

CARLI (CONT’D)
Here’s yours.

She slices into his skin, cutting around the tattoo.

Grady’s CHOKING SHRIEKS fill the dark, empty desert.

EXT. DESERT -- DAY

Buzzards circle over two sheriff’s cruisers and BLM SUVs. They sit near a small plateau in the middle of nowhere. Some Bureau of Land Management AGENTS and DEPUTIES gather around.

Another cruiser rolls up and SHERIFF CHARLETON MENSON gets out -- tall, rangy, completely at home in the desert.

MENSON
Anybody touch anything?

DEPUTY #1
None of us has. Check with the feds.

BLM AGENT
My agent didn’t get all the way up on the plateau. The second he saw it, he came down and called it in.

MENSON
Why’s he over here lookin’?

BLM AGENT
The car. The buzzards.

Menson climbs up the plateau to find --

Grady’s body staked to the ground, next to the car...crawling with ants. Pieces of flesh were pulled away. Menson looks at the buzzards.

MENSON
Ain’t gettin’ no prints off this one, that’s for sure. Got an ID on that car yet?

DEPUTY #2
Belongs to an Anastasia Bordosky, over in Phoenix.

MENSON
What?! You sure ‘bout that?

DEPUTY #2
Yeah. License plate, registration, everything.

BY SOME DISTANT ROCKS

Carli uses a telephoto lens to catch video of the men. Their voices come from her iPhone.

BLM AGENT (O.S.)
What’s the big deal?

MENSON (O.S.)
She died ten days ago. Murder, suicide.

Carli shifts to watch them through the sniper scope of a NEMO Omen .300 Rifle.

BLM AGENT (O.S.)
Bordosky -- I heard about that. Killed her married boyfriend then did a jumper.

MENSON (O.S.)
That’s what the M-E said.

BLM AGENT (O.S.)
Sounds like she was on something.

MENSON (O.S.)
Maybe. And maybe I oughta talk with that M-E and see about takin’ a closer look.

DEPUTY #1 (O.S.)
Why, Sheriff?

MENSON (O.S.)
Nobody said her car was missin’.

Carli smirks.

DEPUTY #2 (O.S.)
Say, wasn’t a girl named Bordosky mixed up in that mess, a couple years back?

MENSON (O.S.)
Yep.

BLM AGENT (O.S.)
What mess?

MENSON (O.S.)
Some stupid college brats got junked up. Fell into some shit that’s way too deep for ‘em.

Carli almost pulls the trigger on him.

CARLI
You got no idea what shit is, you son-of-a-bitch, but you’re about to find out.